2026 Missouri Voters’ Guide — August 4th Primary
The August 4th primary is one of those elections the activist class is counting on you to sleep through. Let’s not give them the satisfaction. This time you’ve got four constitutional amendments that will shape your taxes and your state constitution for years to come, plus a marquee race for St. Charles County Executive. Turnout in an August primary is never great – which means your single vote carries real weight, and so does every neighbor you can drag to the polls with you.
As always, this is not every office on your ballot. I’m hitting the ones that matter most and the ones we can actually move. Here’s where I stand, and why. Please vote, and pass this along to friends and family.
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AMENDMENT 1 – PARKS, SOILS & WATER SALES TAX: I’M A NO.
STATEWIDE • AUGUST 4 PRIMARY •
Let me say this up front so nobody fires off an angry email: I like our state parks. I like clean water and keeping good Missouri farmland from washing down the river. This is not about hating any of that.
Amendment 1 renews the one-tenth-of-one-percent sales tax that funds state parks and our soil and water conservation districts. Missourians have re-upped it every decade since 1984. It pulls in around $140 million a year, and the parks crowd has a slick “it’s just a renewal, not a new tax” campaign to keep it humming right along.
Here’s my problem, and it’s a matter of principle. This tax lives outside the Hancock Amendment – the taxpayer protection that’s supposed to keep Jefferson City’s total take in check and force government to live within its means. When you carve a tax into the constitution on permanent 10-year autopilot, it never has to compete with anything else in the budget. Nobody ever has to look you in the eye and justify it against roads, or cops, or your kids’ classrooms. It just renews, forever, no questions asked.
Good causes are exactly how they get you comfortable with taxes that dodge the rules. If parks and conservation are priorities – and they should be – fund them through the regular budget, under Hancock, where they have to earn it like everything else. I’m a NO on Amendment 1. Send them back to do it the right way.
AMENDMENT 2 – ELECT THE ASSESSOR: I’M A YES.
STATEWIDE • AUGUST 4 PRIMARY •
This one’s easy, and it ties right back to the property-tax fight we waged together in April.
Right now, Jackson County is the only county in all of Missouri where the assessor – the person who decides what your home is “worth,” and therefore how big a property tax bill you get – is appointed instead of elected. Everywhere else in the state, you the voter get a say. Over in Jackson County, the same folks who jacked up assessments and put homeowners through the wringer answer to a bureaucrat upstairs, not to you.
Amendment 2 fixes that. It deletes the loophole and says every charter county, Jackson included, has to elect its assessor, with real training requirements on top of it.
I’m a simple guy on this stuff: if somebody has the power to reach into your wallet, you ought to have the power to fire them at the ballot box. That’s accountability, plain and simple. Appointed officials hide behind their bosses; elected ones have to face the people whose taxes they raise. Vote YES on Amendment 2 and put that power back where it belongs – with you.
AMENDMENT 4 – KEEP OUR CONSTITUTION IN MISSOURI HANDS: HARD YES.
STATEWIDE • AUGUST 4 PRIMARY •
Pay attention to this one, because it’s the most important fight on the ballot that you’ve heard the least about.
For years now, out-of-state billionaires and special interests have figured out they can buy their way into Missouri’s constitution. Raise a big enough pile of cash – a lot of it from the coasts – run up the score in St. Louis and Kansas City, and you can rewrite our founding document with a bare statewide majority while most of the state never had a real say. That isn’t Missourians deciding Missouri’s future. That’s outsiders renting our ballot.
Amendment 4 puts a stop to it, and it does three things I’m glad to stand behind.
First, a citizen petition to change the constitution would have to win a majority in all eight congressional districts – not just two big cities. Rural Missouri, your part of the state finally gets a seat at the table instead of getting steamrolled by the metros.
Second, it bans foreign money from these campaigns. Foreign nationals have no business anywhere near our constitution. Period.
Third, it cracks down on the paid petition fraud that’s become a cottage industry – the same hired-gun, minimum-wage signature operations I’ve been warning you about for years.
Now, the opposition. The Realtors and the unions are already dumping millions into a slick “Protect Majority Rule” campaign to kill this. Don’t fall for the branding. They’re not protecting your vote – they’re protecting their ability to override it with money you and I can’t match. When the big-money crowd spends two million dollars to stop a reform, that tells you exactly how badly they need it stopped.
This is a HARD YES. Vote YES on Amendment 4 and keep Missouri’s constitution in Missourians’ hands – all of us, in every corner of this state.
AMENDMENT 5 – END THE MISSOURI INCOME TAX: VOTE YES.
STATEWIDE • AUGUST 4 PRIMARY •
This is the big one, and it’s on every ballot in the state. For years on this show you and I have talked about ending the Missouri income tax. On August 4th you finally get to do it. Vote YES on Amendment 5, and don’t let anyone scare you out of it.
Here’s the gist of what you’ll see on your ballot:
“Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to: phase out the tax on individual income based on the growth of state revenue; reduce the tax on personal property and other local taxes when local tax revenue increases; modify the sales and use tax to offset the reduction of the individual income tax; and protect funding for public schools?”
What that means in plain English: the state stops reaching into your paycheck. Right now the income tax is about two-thirds of Missouri’s general revenue – that’s how hooked Jefferson City is on your money. Amendment 5 phases it out as the state’s revenue grows, so it comes off the books responsibly instead of blowing a hole in the budget overnight. As that great philosopher Ron Swanson reminded us, the government is a greedy piglet suckling at the taxpayer’s teat. This is how you finally pull it off.
Now look at who’s fighting it. The Missouri Association of Realtors and the labor unions are spending real money to scare you into voting NO, calling this a “power grab.” That’s rich. I never once hear these folks call it a power grab when government grabs another chunk of YOUR money every April 15th. The truth is simple – they like the system the way it is, because the system feeds them. When the people who profit off your taxes beg you to keep paying, you’ve got your answer.
Will the sales-tax side need watching? You bet it will, and I told you so back in April. Amendment 5 gives the legislature five years to modernize the sales and use tax to backfill the lost revenue, and it builds in guardrails along the way – lower personal property taxes when local revenue climbs, and protected funding for our schools. Our job doesn’t end when the polls close. We pass this, then we hold every legislator’s feet to the fire so they cut spending instead of just shuffling the burden around. That’s the deal, and I’ll be holding them to it right here every morning.
And don’t buy the doom and gloom. Eight states already have no income tax – Florida, Texas, and Tennessee among them – and Americans are voting with their moving trucks to get there. Missouri can join that club and stop bleeding families and jobs to states that let you keep what you earn. We compete, or we keep losing people. It’s that simple.
Don’t overthink this one. A YES on Amendment 5 is a YES to your own paycheck and your own kids’ future in this state. I’m a YES – and I’m asking you to drag three neighbors to the polls with you. Period.
ST. LOUIS COUNTY PROP U – INTERNET USE TAX: VOTE NO
Sam Page has created a budget disaster for St. Louis County. Now he and the Council want you to give them more money to waste. They call this a Use Tax, but it’s estimated that it could raise $141-million a year. Most goes to the County general fund, but tens of millions also go to the Zoo and St. Louis County municipalities. The problem here is they are already planning additional tax increases, including a property tax hike for senior services on the November ballot.
Make St. Louis County balance it’s checkbook. Vote NO on Prop U.
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ST. CHARLES COUNTY EXECUTIVE
REPUBLICAN PRIMARY • AUGUST 4 • MY ENDORSEMENT: BILL EIGEL.
Take this race seriously, St. Charles. In a county this red, the August 4th Republican primary is the whole ballgame. Three good Republicans are on the ballot, and I want to be straight with you about all three.
Let me start with Steve Ehlmann, because the man has earned a respectful word. He’s run this county since 2007 and given St. Charles a lot of years of steady, competent service, and nobody can take that away from him. But here’s the thing – Steve himself told us back in 2023 that he was done, that he wouldn’t seek another term. Then last fall he changed his mind and jumped back in for a sixth. Five terms is a heck of a run. I think he had it right the first time. It’s time to thank him for his service and let the county move forward with fresh leadership.
Now, Jason Law. I’m not going to hide how much I think of this guy. He’s the mayor of Lake Saint Louis and a lieutenant colonel with the St. Louis County Police – decades of putting on a uniform and serving the public the hard way. Jason Law is exactly the kind of person you want in public life: serious, principled, the real deal. So I’ll say it plainly – if Bill Eigel weren’t in this race, I’d be standing right here telling you to vote for Jason Law. Keep his name in your head, St. Charles. This is not the last you’ll hear of him.
But Bill Eigel is in the race, and Bill gets my endorsement. You know Bill from his years in the state Senate and his run for governor, and you know he doesn’t take a job to keep the seat warm. He’s a fighter. He’s a change agent. He’ll walk into that county building and start shaking the tree – taking on the spending, taking on the good-old-boy comfort, and forcing the kind of accountability that long-tenured government never hands you on its own. That’s exactly what St. Charles County needs right now.
So here’s where I land: real respect for Steve Ehlmann’s service, genuine admiration for Jason Law, and my vote – and my recommendation to you – for Bill Eigel. Vote Eigel on August 4th, and let’s shake things up.
CANDIDATE ENDORSEMENTS
REPUBLICAN PRIMARY • AUGUST 4 • MY ENDORSEMENTS:
- 2nd Congressional District: ANN WAGNER
- 3rd Congressional District: Dr. BOB ONDER
- 8th Congressional District: JASON SMITH
- St. Charles County Executive: BILL EIGEL
- St. Charles County Director of Elections: JEN OLSON
- St. Charles County Council Dist. 3: ANNETTE SIEVE
- St. Charles County Assoc Circuit Judge Div. 11: TANYA MUHM
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2026 Missouri Voters’ Guide — August 4th Primary 2026 Missouri Voters’ Guide — August 4th Primary
